Companies and organizations in the field of cryptocurrencies have been trying hard to go mainstream, despite the significant losses incurred over the bear run that occurred over the past few months. One of the largest crypto-companies making headlines almost regularly is Consensys. According to new reports, the Joseph Lubin-founded organization is seeking $200 million from investors and venture capitalists to complete its pipeline projects.

The Ethereum [ETH] -based company’s objective to complete the investment round comes in the wake of reports which state that Consensys managed to generate only $21 million in revenue, a marked difference from its earlier projections. There have also been rumors of the company asking for a $1 billion valuation, a figure that raised eyebrows amongst the crypto-community, with many rooting for the idea that “Consensys was worth far less”.

The Joseph Lubin-led company’s decision to ask for more funding was taken a few months after the Ethereum co-founder said that employees would be laid off as “the blockchain space had become too competitive and crowded”. The comment was made in December 2018, at the same time when Lubin talked about the different directions that Consensys planned to take with its developments. He said:
“We are creating transitions for some projects that we believe don’t fit as well into the ConsenSys 2.0 vision as they did in ConsenSys 1.0, and we are working on ways to continue to support these projects going forward as we sketch plans for a ConsenSys alumni network. We continue to invest in external projects, and continue to hire for internal projects that remain core to our forward-looking business.”

Consensys is best known for incubating projects like Civil, a media company based on the blockchain that was created to reduce bias and increase journalistic integrity. Joseph Lubin had earlier claimed that Civil would include “game-changing” features like live tie-ups with media houses and permanent archiving of stories so that none are lost to technological or human errors.

Lubin had also grabbed headlines when he stated that the field of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies was seeing a good spike in interest. Calling the crypto-verse a “new trust infrastructure”, Lubin commented:

“Instead of relying on intermediaries to provide trust, in different situations, in different industries, content creators or service providers or resource providers can directly access and interact with their consumers.”